


Children

by Kettricken



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-23
Updated: 2013-09-23
Packaged: 2017-12-27 09:49:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/977354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kettricken/pseuds/Kettricken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set after "The Blue Spirit". Can Zuko escape the damage of his past, or do some scars run too deep? Drama/Action/Character piece. Slight revision of an older piece.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Children

When he was younger, Iroh had nurtured a profound and queasy hatred of boats. These days, he liked to imagine that his earlier sentiment had been a premonition of his current predicament, forced to spend what ought to have been the calm years of his wisdom and maturity on deck and below. He'd grown sea legs with time, fortunately, having spent all his youthful seasickness on those endless naval raids - those shivering holds packed with fire nation boys, stewing in nerves and bluster, ready to spill out like burning waves over the territories of Earth and Water. Perhaps it had only been the cramped quarters. Or perhaps it had been the tension of youth itself, that martial eagerness held barely in check. He recognized it so often in his nephew—as he did now, with Zuko standing at attention before him, hands clenched, tendons standing like ropes in his neck. 

 

"Tea, nephew?"

 

Zuko scowled and turned away.

 

"I had him, uncle," he said. "For three whole days, I  alone made him my captive. No-one else can say that much. Not Zhao. Not even my father."

 

Iroh pushed the tea across the desk, hoping the boy would take it in lieu of the praise he clearly wanted. To praise Zuko's effort in the wake of his failure would only sound patronizing. Better to let the boy come to his own terms. 

 

And, Iroh reflected, at least the hot water might help relax his muscles.

 

"Three days alone with the Avatar?" Iroh swirled his own tea, making little waves in the cup. "A good opportunity for information. Tell me, what did you learn?"

 

Zuko's eyes flickered. "Nothing of importance. Avatar Aang is only a child. He understands nothing, so there is nothing to learn from him."

 

Iroh looked up over the rim of the cup. "Tell me anyway," he said.

 

#

 

Zuko had awakened on the second day after leaving the ship to find his money stolen and his food supplies ripped open. The latest bounty hunter, Jok, was, of course, also missing. His tracks had been obscured with the precision of a professional. Zuko was alone, two days' march into a featureless grassland, and his jerky was covered with hornets.

 

Infuriated, Zuko shot a quick jet of fire at the food satchel; a few flaming hornets trailed crazy firefly streaks across the morning sky before falling, but the majority were crisped immediately, as was the meat. The scent of charred beef wafted into the open sky. Cursing, Zuko gingerly peeled the edges of burnt satchel away. The meat was ruined; only a few apple-pears were salveagable. Perfectly baked, in fact.

 

Zuko ate them, morosely, burning his tongue. The anger was melting away to annoyance—what kind of idiot possessed the audacity to attack a sleeping firebender? Did the fool set no value on his own limbs? Throwing the cores into the grass, Zuko began to walk, leaving the ruined mess, still smoking, in the spring grasses. A firebender had no need for scavengers' pickings. A firebender was a hunter. And Zuko still had a quarry.

 

The Avatar's movements had become less haphazard of late, as if he had found a new resolution. Less random meant more predictable—more easily intercepted. Jok had been a local terrain expert, and a strong fighter, but Zuko hadn't spent more than two years aboard ships without learning a few useful skills. The stars were the same on the steppes as on the ocean.

 

The grasses were pale, weak, and waist-high—no easy terrain, but passable. Zuko stalked forward doggedly for several hours, keeping one eye to the high skies. A flying bison was not an easy thing to hide on a clear day, especially when one had a good idea of its likely whereabouts. He had paused to take a short rest when he caught sight of a speck off to the east; staying low, quiet, Zuko watched the air bison sail serenely overhead, then dip toward the westerly sun, disappearing behind a rolling hill. Zuko leapt up, doubling over for cover in the short grasses, and began to run. His heart was racing; his body was an arrow from the bow, no strain or effort, all purpose. 

 

Still, it took him until nightfall to find the camp. The Avatar had chosen a beautiful spot, the kind that would be obvious for miles from the air, but perhaps never found by other means; a little pond nested between soft hills of grass, low trees huddled against its shore for moisture. Huddled against the roots were three sleeping figures. The obnoxious boy, and the waterbender, whose names he had never bothered to know; and Aang.

 

(To be entirely fair, of course, there was also an enormous bison.)

 

Zuko's heart beat in his throat. Patience, patience, he reminded himself; a soldier's patience. Look for it. Wait for it. He went to the shore of the lake, drank deeply, filled his flagon and picked up a round, smooth stone that fit well in his palm. Then he began to pace the outskirts of the camp, slowly and methodically, until he found their half-dug latrine. He sat, feeling the weight of his weapon.

 

When the opportunity came, some hours into the night, he let the Avatar relieve himself before he knocked him out and fled into the night.

 

#

 

It was midmorning and muggy when Zuko felt the boy slung across his shoulders begin to stir.

 

"Don't even think about trying to bend," Zuko said. "I tied your hands and feet."

 

Aang's furious exhalation hit him without warning on the side of the head, boxing his ear. Zuko's head rang, and he staggered; he had already grown dizzy from the exertion of running and lack of food. He let Aang slip, shaking his head, trying to snap his vision back to focus—and spotted, just in time, the boy worming frantically in a nest of grasses, readying himself for a second blow. Zuko sidestepped, reeling like a drunk, and sent a spurt of flame to strike the grasses beside the Avatar. Aang rolled away onto his stomach, but too slowly; Zuko straddled him, sat on his back, and boxed both of his ears.

 

Aang yelped, and Zuko, balance still unsteady, pulled him back across his shoulders.

 

"That was a nice little game," he said. "Want to play again? What's next, scream for your friends? I'd love to knock you out again. It might kill you, but you'd be easier to carry that way."

 

From the sudden lack of wriggling against his back, Aang was considering it. Zuko stepped up the pace. He had taken a different direction through the grassland on impulse, and had been lucky. There was forest and cover ahead. True, the water tribe siblings weren't much of a threat to him, but still he felt exposed, even criminal; as if the sky was watching him.

 

Aang chose that moment to scream.

 

Zuko had a younger sister. Zuko had heard men put to torture by fire (including, arguably, himself.) He had thought he understood the capacity of the human lungs. 

 

Zuko had never experienced the lungs of an Airbender.

 

Wave upon wave of concentrated sound battered his eardrums, then careened across the landscape carried on eddies and gusts of wind—and just before he passed out in reflexive sensory self-defense, Zuko realized he'd been too careless: everything within a ten mile radius would have heard that scream.

 

#

 

Zuko woke with a start and the breathless panic of disorientation. Quickly he gaged the position of the sun in the sky—how long? Where was the Avatar? 

 

"You can get up now," said a rueful voice. It was coming from underneath him.

 

Zuko strained his neck. He had fallen onto his back into the soft grasses. Aang was pinned underneath. The Avatar looked... bored.

 

"How long was I asleep?" Zuko cursed the question as it left his mouth. You don't show weakness to the prey.

 

"Eh, about two hours," Aang said. "I figured you needed it, or I would've poked you earlier. I've got a headache. Do you have any water?"

 

Zuko pulled himself to his knees. His own headache was courtesy of Aang; but after he had drunk, he tipped some water into his captive's mouth. "No-one came for you," he stated.

 

"Nah. I screamed a whole bunch after you went down." Aang smiled proudly. "They must have gone pretty far the wrong way looking for me. Appa's fast when he's motivated."

 

Zuko stood. He was still famished, but he no longer felt so dizzy; the discipline of the soldier's long march was returning to his body.

 

"So, by the way...where are we going?" Aang asked, allowing himself to be hauled up once more.

 

"To the Fire Lord."

 

"Really? But after you broke me out last time... I thought you decided not to let the Fire Nation have me."

 

"Idiot," Zuko said dispassionately. "Fire Nation captivity is exactly where I want you. But I have to be the one to put you there."

 

"Oh."

 

Aang was quiet just long enough for Zuko to slip back into the rhythm of walking. Then he piped up again.

 

"Why?"

 

Zuko missed a beat in his jogging, and grimaced. "Can't you be quiet?"

 

"I don't see why I should," Aang said. "I'm a prisoner already. You're taking me to the Fire Lord. What else are you going to do to me?"

 

"I could gag you."

 

Aang ignored this. "So, um... I always wondered. How did you get burned like that? That looks really nasty."

 

"None of your business," Zuko snapped.

 

Under the trees, the footing was getting much easier—more roots and stones, but at least Zuko could see his own feet. He picked up speed. The sun would be setting soon; it was time to find a defensible place to rest. Aang, once it had become clear that Zuko wasn't about to answer his questions, had begun to prate on about himself instead—old acquaintances that Zuko reminded him of, favorite places and things to do, newer stories about Sokka and Katara. Katara. Sokka. Katarakatarakatara(sokka)katara. There was no more avoiding those names; every other word out of his mouth was about his friends. As he scouted for a campsite, Zuko found himself growing more and more sour; he didn't care for asinine prattle. This was the bender who fought him to a standstill in every match? This was the best the Avatar could find to occupy his time?

 

Without realizing his own intentions, Zuko suddenly ducked and kicked fiercely into the air; fire shot off to the right, silencing Aang with a sudden "whoa!".

 

In the silence that followed, the leaves set alight by Zuko's bending crackled, slowly going out.

 

A smoldering squirrel fell from the branch.

 

"...oh boy," Aang said nervously. "Dinner?"

 

Zuko was fanatically careful about the camp for the night. Occluding branches, check; proximity to foul-smelling skunk cabbage to mask the odor, check; tight knots on the rope, secured to a thick tree root; check. He ate the unfortunate squirrel greedily, sparing only a few bites for his prisoner. It wasn't selfishness; Aang wasn't going to have to walk the next day, and Zuko was. He repeated this to himself when Aang's face grew darker upon receiving his own meager portion. Wordless at last, Aang refused to eat any of it. So the Avatar was stubborn after all.

 

Aang watched as Zuko cleaned up the camp and buried the remains of dinner. This silence, however, was not guaranteed to continue. Zuko let his hand rest on a stone for a moment, contemplating the merits of knocking Aang unconscious again. The risk of concussion would be significant… Zuko released the rock, fashioned strips of cloth into a gag, Aang's eyes on him all the time. He gave the boy a final drink of water before he placed it in the boy's mouth. But it was no good; every time he drifted off to sleep, he started up again, at a noise or a stirring, and saw those eyes watching, watching, waiting for an opening.

 

Stifling a curse, he reached for the stone.

 

On the second day, sullenly, Aang did not speak at all. His weight lay like a corpse against Zuko's neck. Zuko was surprised at how much easier his task became; without the boy worming and distracting him, Zuko quickly found his stride, as if the human being he bore were no more than a gunny sack. And so, left to his own mind, he let the import of the past two days sink in at last. He had captured the Avatar. There were, as yet, no signs of pursuit. In a matter of days, he would reach the port where Iroh and his ship waited; he would return to the Fire Nation in triumph. His exile would end. His father—

 

 

Zuko lengthened his stride.

 

That night he felt confident enough to loosen the bonds on Aang's wrists just slightly, to check for chafing. If he was going to deliver the Avatar, he would do it properly: as a soldier taking a prisoner, not some rough thief to savage a child. Aang didn't fight him; simply lay back and closed his eyes and Zuko manipulated his wrists. The skin was raw, but not broken. Zuko shifted the position of the rope before retying it. As he did so, he noticed the boy had also lost one of his sandals during the march. Aggravated, Zuko began to rummage through his remaining supplies for a spare bit of cloth or leather before realizing that, of course, it didn't matter. The Avatar might never walk outside under his own power again.

 

"Are you going to hit me again?" Aang asked slowly. It was the first time he had spoken all day; the words sounded strangely tired.

 

Zuko turned to him, and before Aang could react, forced an eyelid open. The boy struggled in reflex, but then stopped just as quickly, resignation in all his features.

 

"Don't move," Zuko ordered. He called a small flame to his fingertip, squinting at Aang's eye. The left pupil contracted normally; the right was perhaps a touch slower. Or was he imagining it?

 

"Avatar," he said, sharply. "You have already learned to bend water, correct?"

 

"Um... yes…" Aang eyed him suspiciously.

 

"The water in my flask is warm. Can you make it colder?"

 

"If you let me have my arms, I can." Aang looked a little more alert; his eyes narrowed.

 

Zuko bent to untie the rope—and recognized the quick, circling motions of an Airbending techinque. He struck Aang's arms down, roughly. "No," he ordered. "Waterbending. Did you think I couldn't tell them apart? Don't take me for a fool."

 

With bitter hatred in his eyes, Aang moved again—a small gesture that instantly turned the flask to ice.

 

"Enjoy your nice cold water," he said spitefully, "in a couple hours, when it thaws."

 

Zuko was already binding his hands again. "Just what I needed," he said. "Lie down. Keep this against your head. Your bruise is swelling too much."

 

Aang's eyes widened.

 

"And you don't have to spite me by not eating again tonight," he added.

 

"...I'm not," Aang said. "I don't eat meat."

 

This was perturbing. Opinions were a luxury that prisoners should not be afforded.

 

"You will if you want to survive," Zuko tried.

 

Aang blinked; looked at the game bird that Zuko had pulled from the fire, then looked away again, his stomach rumbling. "Uh... I'm not going to eat it." His eyes were open, though, begging the unanswered question.

 

"No, I'm not going to hit you tonight," Zuko said, contemptuously. "You squeal like a baby. It's unbefitting to the Avatar."

 

After a moment of shocked silence, Zuko sighed. "Well, go to sleep," he said, feeling thoroughly irritable. "Don't expect me to sleep first. I'll know if you're faking, and I wake up before dawn."

 

He expected another test of wills, but Aang dropped into sleep almost immediately, his relaxed features even younger. Resignedly, Zuko sat himself beside the Avatar, watching his breathing carefully. Aang was his prize; if he were truly concussed, then he was at risk to slip into a coma—not necessarily the worst result for Fire Nation strategy, but certainly not the proud offering Zuko wanted to make—or even to die. Unacceptable.

 

Zuko was struck, for the first time, by the frailty of the body in front of him. Over the course of their battles, he had come almost to see him as some untouchable incarnation of air — the teasing embodiment of Zuko's impossible quest for a being that did not exist, a will-o'-the-wisp. But then, after all, wasn't Aang the Avatar? More other than human, a spiritual force that only breathed through this mortal shell? Now, though, all Zuko could see was the thin chest rising and falling, the red mark on the temple, and he could not dismiss the wince of automatic sympathy before turning away. Just a bodily reaction, he told himself. A soldier cannot regret his mission.

 

The night deepened around them. Twice the Avatar mumbled in his sleep, but the words were incoherent, revealing nothing of his plans; the only thing Zuko could pick out were the names "Katara," perhaps "Roku." Once, when Aang seemed particularly quiet, he carefully placed a hand in front of the boy's nose, until he felt the warmth on his palm that was the Airbender's breath.

 

When Aang woke at dawn, he found Zuko still sitting several feet away, staring into space.

 

That day Zuko started answering the Airbender's questions.

 

"Yes, the Fire Lord is my father," he said imperiously, "as you probably know. Your capture will bring me honor, and favor."

 

"I'm glad it makes somebody happy," Aang sulked. "Could we please stop a minute? There was blueberry bush back there..."

 

"Pick berries on your own time, Airbender," Zuko said. "Oh, wait—I suppose you're a little tied up at the moment..."

 

"Ha, ha, ha. How come you're in such a good mood?"

 

"I know the terrain today," Zuko replied. "We'll be at the ship sooner than I thought. Tonight, or maybe tomorrow morning."

 

In a small voice: "...oh." 

 

Then: "Zuko... what are they going to do to me?"

 

Zuko considered this as he ran. "Doesn't matter," he decided. "You'll be kept alive. Someday, I'll be emperor of the Fire Nation. Then I'll decide your fate myself."

 

"So then...what are you going to do to me?"

 

This was a new thought; but as soon as he posed it to himself, Zuko knew the answer. What else could be so fitting? He stretched his lips taut across his teeth.  "I'll chain you to the mast of a ship," he said, "and make it sail all around the known world. You can never make port when the others go on shore leave or get supplies; you will live out your life and die on that little ship. A balance for the pain you've caused me."

 

"The pain I caused?"

 

Zuko bit his lip. He had nearly let his shame slip. Shame was power; he meant to remove all power from the Avatar, not give him more leverage. He turned left. A breeze was stirring through the trees.

 

"Zuko..." Aang's voice sounded distant. "Zuko. I'm sorry."

 

He was opening his mouth to respond in anger, when the wind boxed his ear again, and suddenly Aang was on his feet, the ankle-rope dangling from one foot—and then the Airbender was aloft, quick as a flushed bird, rushing into the trees.

 

Zuko wheeled, roaring his rage, and with the breath of his shout, fire sprang from his hands at the small, retreating figure. Aang dodged nimbly, darted aside—

 

—and then, abruptly, took the third shot square on the shoulder.

 

The yellow figure plummeted from the high branches, and Zuko smelled burnt flesh, his pulse beating painfully in his own scar. He thrust a hand out as Aang fell past him to slow the other boy's descent; the Avatar fell into a roll, rose, then fell again to his unwounded shoulder, teeth clenched, one hand hovering above the burn as if afraid to touch it. Zuko was not certain whether or not he was sobbing.

 

He stripped the cloth abruptly from other boy's injury, pouring water from the flask to clean it. The burn was extensive. "Did you think the fire wouldn't hurt?" he heard himself saying. "Did you think you were some kind of invincible being, the great Avatar, immortal? Did you think I wouldn't do it? You're just a kid!" He was babbling, why was he babbling? He plunged his hand into the pouch at his waist.

 

"It hurts," was all Aang could say, through clenched teeth. "Hurts. I... ngg." He was shaking; sweat beaded at his temples, and on his upper lip. The boy would be feverish by nightfall. Zuko scrabbled for the little glass jar of burn ointment—standard gear for practicing Firebenders. Quickly, he slathered it against the blistering flesh.

 

"Now you know what it means to fight the Fire Nation," he said. "So now, you understand why you have to come quietly."

 

"Rggh—can't," Aang cried out, through chattering teeth. "Ngg...'m... Avatar!" Zuko moved to the ankle rope. Aang must have untied it with his bare foot. He cursed at his own foolishness.

 

"Yeah, Avatar Aang," Zuko said, jerking the rope. "The great. Who thinks he can escape from Firebenders with his arms still tied. Whose friends deserted him."

 

"That's not true," Aang said, his voice clearer now. The chattering had stopped; the ointment working. "They wouldn't betray me. They just haven't found me yet."

 

Zuko looked up. "That's true," he said. "Your friends are too stupid to betray you. They will try to rescue you; and they'll be killed for you. Can you live with that, Avatar?"

 

"They know what they're doing," Aang said. "Don't you dare call them stupid just because they do what's right!"

 

The air was picking up again, tickling the stray hairs at the back of Zuko's neck. "You're such a child!" he yelled. Aang's face reddened; Zuko could feel his own heart pounding. He felt like a bully. "Sacrificing your friends for some impossible goal—how is that right? Playing with people's lives, and people's destinies, as if the consequences along the way are all going to be excused when you accomplish your goals? How many people have to be ruined to save the world, Avatar?"

 

"I don't know," Aang shouted. "I just know I have to do it, that's all!"

 

"And that's why you're a child," Zuko said, furious now. "You don't think. You have no idea what consequences mean. You don't even know what betrayal is. You're an arrogant, immature—"

 

"That's not fair," Aang retorted. "I know all about that stuff; I ouaughh!" His words cut off in a strangled yelp as Zuko lightly ran a fingernail across the burn.

 

"There." Zuko could feel the anger washing out of him, satisfied by the enemy's suffering: the way of honorable battle. "Someday you are going to live in that pain," he said. "Then maybe—maybe—you will be old enough to speak to me."

 

Aang's eyes went wide. He had been breathing quickly, first in pain, then in the heat of the argument; now he began to grow still, even as Zuko's own breath continued hot. For a moment, neither one spoke; high above them in the trees, a hundred tiny fires, sparked in Zuko's attack, were slowly burning themselves away.  A fragment of charred leaf fell.

 

"What happened to you?" Aang asked, quietly.

 

"Didn't I just tell you not to speak to me?" Zuko snapped, his voice rising again in anger; but even as he said the words, the Avatar was rising, his hands parting, revealing—

 

—revealing the charred ends of the rope that had tied his wrists.

 

As Zuko started up, trying to regain his balance and his composure, mind racing to grasp the situation— _his own attack, it had severed in one of his own attacks_ —the burnt end of the rope flew forward, striking him in the eye before he could blink it. Aang's feet were still half-untied, and as Zuko's hand flew to his smarting eye, flailing wild, the other boy ducked down and pulled off the second rope. The powerful gust of a full Airbending attack hit Zuko in the side, and he fell, scraping the length of the forest floor on his knees until he was buffeted into the broad trunk of an oak tree. 

 

Aang was almost out of sight by the time Zuko pulled himself up. He sprang forward, racing across the same ground they had traversed that morning, the orange dot of Aang's robes dwindling in the treetops ahead until Zuko could not tell if he was even seeing it anymore, or merely imagining in. Still he ran, mad, faster and faster, leaping rocks and brambles, blood beating in his throat. It couldn't have happened. He couldn't have lost him. His chest was aching. The light had gone blue with evening, and he was no longer certain of the trail; running blind, Zuko drew his breath in, and sent the fire rushing out before him; but his mind was in a thousand places at once, his breath was shallow and powerless, and the fire guttered and stopped, as if unsure of what was wanted of it.

 

#

 

"I could not find his trail, so I returned to the ship," Zuko finished, looking straight ahead. "But you would not see me until this morning."

 

The note of reprobation made Iroh raise an eyebrow.

 

"It didn't seem all that urgent then," Iroh said. "But if all you have learned from this is that the Avatar is a child, then I can confirm that you have truly wasted both of our time. We already knew Aang was a child."

 

Zuko made a visible effort to remain calm. "Uncle," he said. "If you do not have anything more to say, I will go and train."

 

"Did you consider letting him die?" Iroh interrupted, his eyes far away. The shock on Zuko's face told him all he needed to know. A little hope settled into Iroh's stomach; he sipped his tea and let the moment settle, expand, ride the relief of hot water. Zuko had not considered letting the Aang die. His nephew was confused, and young, but he still retained his moral compass. He would not seriously consider killing an innocent child, no matter the personal gain. All Iroh had to do was breathe a little life into the sparks—provoke a reaction, let the indignant self slowly rise through all the layers of grief, betrayal, and anger. 

 

Iroh steadied his hand on the teacup. "Really? Why not? With Aang dead, we would need to start fresh, it's true; but so would Zhao, and you are younger. Also, the next Avatar would be a Waterbender. We've eliminated most of those clans, and a Bender raised on the run would not have time to master the techniques as well. He would be a less formidable opponent. Without Aang in the mix, there could be no-one to stand against Ozai when the comet comes." He put down the cup, and raised his eyes to meet his nephew's. "Why not, Zuko?"

 

The shock on Zuko's face had turned to thoughtfulness; then, slowly, his face hardened in determination, and his shoulders dropped. "I understand," he said. "This must be how a general thinks. But then…uncle, why did you not order this when we first had the Avatar in custody?"

 

Iroh leaned back, his stomach sinking again. "Oh—not important now," he said. "Think no more of it." Patience, Iroh reminded himself. Time and example.

 

"Your tea must be cold," Zuko said, almost eagerly. "I could warm it for you."

 

"Don't bother, don't bother. It'll only get cold again." Iroh smiled. "Cold tea is good sometimes, too."

 

Zuko looked skeptical.

 

"Go on, train, do as you like," Iroh said, waving a hand at his nephew. "I have a morning nap to see to." Then, on a whim, he added: "Zuko?"

 

 His nephew paused at the door to the cabin, frowning now, confused again. 

 

"I asked you whether you considered killing him," Iroh folded his hands. "This is a tactical question—as you say, a question for a general, or a prince. But we all of us have the ability, and the duty, to ask another kind of question." He turned his head to the window.  "You did not even consider killing Aang. And I did not order it." 

 

He stared for several seconds, feeling, rather than watching, Zuko's impatience rise. "What's the question?" he asked, finally.

 

"Oh, that?" Iroh turned back, all innocence, as if he had forgotten the question. "I already asked it. Five minutes ago."

 

"I... what???"

 

"I asked you why _not_."

 

"I—but I already answered you. I didn't think of it!" 

 

Iroh sighed in irritation. He had allowed Zuko's temper to steer the conversation into a confrontation. Anger was contagious, like a fire spreading—anger and confusion, steeping through the wooden sides of the cabin and Iroh's tea and Iroh's reasoning. "Quite," he said. "You did not think. No, never mind. I'm only an old man. Go, go practice your breathing."

 

He sat again. He did not look up at Zuko's indrawn breath, nor when his nephew stalked from the room.

 

Nor did Iroh tell him that he, too, like Aang, was only a child. By the time Zuko could have understood, the very realization would have made it no longer true. Some lessons, though Iroh, cannot not be spoken: they have to inhabit people, like second souls, growing to slow maturity until they wake with the man: or perhaps never realized, perhaps vanishing in very the moment they are grasped. Just as some children vanish seamlessly into their own futures; just as others drown in their pasts, letting time wash over them in unremarked waves.

 

The tea had gone cold after all. Iroh drank it quickly, and set the cup aside.


End file.
